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This chapter offers a comparison between Charter 08 and Charta 77, the manifesto written by Czechoslovak dissidents, mainly Vàclav Havel and Jan Patocka, to demand the respect of human rights by the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia. The two charters are similar in their content, both invoking international human rights norms and both attempting to function largely within the existing legal framework. Another related similarity between the two lies in the fact that their objectives are not so much to subvert the regimes as to provide a support structure when the regimes fall. However, despite...

This chapter offers a comparison between Charter 08 and Charta 77, the manifesto written by Czechoslovak dissidents, mainly Vàclav Havel and Jan Patocka, to demand the respect of human rights by the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia. The two charters are similar in their content, both invoking international human rights norms and both attempting to function largely within the existing legal framework. Another related similarity between the two lies in the fact that their objectives are not so much to subvert the regimes as to provide a support structure when the regimes fall. However, despite their similarities, both exist in drastically different political and economic contexts. China in 2008 was different from Czechoslovakia in 1977 in terms of the politics, economy, and soft power that the respective communist parties may have, and those differences affect the impact of the respective charters in society.